


breathe

by sealestial



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Gen, Self-Doubt, a look into how keith reacts to his galra blood, and how he deals with others reacting to it badly, seriously don't read this if you aren't past episode 9 in the second season, very vague mention of homophobia, voltron s2 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 08:25:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9429992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sealestial/pseuds/sealestial
Summary: He’s tainted now. Has always been. It’s a wonder he doesn’t bleed purple because hefights like a Galra soldierand god do those words echo in his head.





	

The mission is all that’s keeping him together. Collect the scaultrite. Defeat Zarkon. Do his part as a Paladin of Voltron and ignore hurt of betrayal that’s buried between his ribs. Don’t look the Princess in the eye. Keep a hand on the hilt of the knife given to him by one family and pretend to not see it cutting away at the other.

Breathe. _Breathe._

There’s no time to dwell. There’s no time for questions, for hesitance or explanations. Even without the anxiety that’s making it hard to breathe and crushing him from the inside out—Keith has no right to ask for anything. From any of his team. His family. He _can’t_ when he’s got the blood of the people who tortured Shiro for a year, forced him to fight, took his arm, and left him close to broken; the people who took everything from Allura; the people they’ve been fighting the _entire time_ they’ve been Paladins. He **_can’t._ **

He’s tainted now. Has always been. It’s a wonder he doesn’t bleed purple because he _fights like a Galra soldier_ and god do those words echo in his head. In the cockpit of the Yellow Lion, before Hunk starts asking him about his heritage like Keith knows any more than his fellow paladins do, he comes close to pressing his finger against the blade with the glowing insignia—just to see. Just to check. Will the knowledge make his blood spill violet?

Before they’d left but after he’d spent time in the healing pods, Keith goes back to his room. It’s still sparse, still unchanged, and his belt with the pouches is still laid on the bed where he put it before changing into his armor. Nothing is changed. Everything is changed. When he passes the small mirror that hangs on the wall between his door and his bed—Keith almost expects to see sclera-less yellow eyes reflected in the glass. He doesn’t. Instead grey eyes stare back at him, framed by furrowed brows and too-long bangs that often get in his way. Even so, even though the reflection he’s known for twenty years remains unaltered, Keith can’t recognize himself.

The face that stares back at him doesn’t fit anymore. It feels like a _lie,_ a ruse, because monsters shouldn’t look human. Keith almost wants to look different because then, at least, something would be outwardly changed. There’d be proof he was no longer himself. There’d be proof that Allura is right in her newfound hatred, and that he really is replaceable.

Soldiers are always replaceable.

That’s what rips open the already bloodied wound near his lungs; the knowledge that they’ll find another Red Paladin. They can’t have an enemy as a part of the team, as a part of the family, so Keith tries desperately to sew himself back together with the mantra _do it for them just do it for them do it for the person they thought you were._

He was finally starting to think he’d found his place, too. Keith knows he’s never belonged on Earth, so being destined to pilot a lion through deep space sat well with him. What he didn't expect was _family._ Orphans like him, kids that are always too angry and too ready to fight and too ready to bleed, don’t get to have families. They don’t get security. They claw their way through life and take what they can and pray they’ll survive to age out of the system. Problem children with tempers who try kissing boys and go against the grain stay wards of the state until they can _serve_ the state.

Keith has always wanted to fly, but it isn’t like any place but the military would take him anyway.

So he gets to fly, he gets to meet Shiro, he gets to space with an ancient weapon and three other people he comes to care about (because he’d decided on loving Shiro an eon ago), and for once—

For _once_ Keith thought he’d found the place where an orphan with a chip on his shoulder and cracks down his middle could be accepted. He’d thought… _he’d thought._

He didn’t know what he’d thought.

Letting his guard down was stupid. Letting them in was even _more_ stupid. Letting them care about him and letting himself care about them in return has to be the _dumbest shit he’s ever done._ Because of course he can’t have this, can’t have family.

Rejection leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Allura’s gaze skipping over him entirely makes his jaw clench. Shiro’s somehow unfaltering kindness makes his heart break. Hunk talking about his newfound Galra heritage on their way to the weblum doesn’t help. The video about scaultrite collection is fun but if he laughs it might spiral into hysteria.

He inhales. _Patience yields focus._

Disguise the anxiety as anger. Use the anger as fuel. Think about the mission, the scaultrite, the weblum. Don’t let your voice crack. Answer Hunk as best you can. Whatever happens—don’t stop.

Because if Keith lets himself think for too long, he’s going to shatter exactly in the way of the teludav lenses. Nothing good lurks in his brain or his blood and the consequences of reckless impulse no longer matter. He’s Galra, he’s expendable, he’s an orphan, a pilot, the Red Paladin, half-Korean, and alone among a team he’s loved.

Keith will help get the scaultrite. He’ll be of as much use to the team as he possibly can. He’ll answer Hunk’s questions and focus on the young adult version of Coran in the video. He’ll accept the possibility of death the way he always has—with bared teeth and grim determination.

(Ignore the familiarity of this loss, ignore the bits of lead in his belly, and ignore the knife hidden beneath the armor. Ignore the fear that’s drenching the fire, ignore the sudden second-guessing of instincts and the urge to leave again. Prove something. Prove anything.)

They spot the weblum and everything’s suddenly moving like it should. He’s focused on the mission. He’s going to do his part to defeat Zarkon. _What_ he is goes on the backburner, now second to the moment and the adrenaline of an attacking planet-eater.

Push everything else to the side and breathe.

 

_Breathe._

**Author's Note:**

> i feel like i should apologize but also not
> 
> my tumblr is [here](https://sealestial.tumblr.com/)


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